Facebook is Taking on Tinder With New Dating Features

With a new set of dating features, the world’s largest social network, Facebook is trying to invade Tinder’s space.

During the company’s F8 developers conference keynote in San Jose, California, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook is adding a dating layer to its main mobile app. The feature is designed to compete with popular services like Tinder. It is a long time coming for the 14-year old Facebook that has allowed users to show up whether they’re single or in a relationship when it first went live in February 2004.

With more than 2.2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is likely to get transformed into a major competitor of Match Group (owns and operates Tinder and OkCupid). Match Group’s stock dropped swiftly by more than 17% as soon as the news was announced. The Facebook’s dating app profiles look similar to other mobile-focused dating apps like Tinder and Bumble, with full-page profile photos.

Here’s how Facebook dating will work

Opt–in to a create a profile justwith your first name. Your profile is not visible to friends, users who are not on the dating feature, and it also won’t show up in the News Feed.

After setting up the dating profile, you can browse events in your city and groups that match your interests. You can select to “unlock” one for dating. Then you will be able to see the profiles of other dating users who’ve unlocked that surface.

You can browse through other people’s profiles that show off a few of their pics plus some basic info about them. You’ll be shown people based on mutual interests and friends, plus other data Facebook has on you.

If you both are interested, Then you can start a conversation with someone in a special inbox that’s separate from Messenger and WhatsApp. For safety, only text can be sent for now.

Zuckerberg described the new dating feature as a tool to build “real long-term relationships – not just hookups”.“We want Facebook to be somewhere where you can start meaningful relationships,” he continued. “We’ve designed this with privacy and safety in mind from the beginning.”